Text is the most basic object of localization. However, to handle it at low level -- to encode text -- such that languages of the world are smoothly supported, was historically not trivial. Read about the current standards, proper setups and errors due to text encoding which may pop up.

Parts of text are sometimes presented to the user in special way: bold or italic, title sized, etc. XML-like text markup is a popular way of specifying such presentation, and translators will frequently find it embedded in the source texts. This article deals with XML markup from translators' viewpoint.

KDE evolves by integrating a lot of work contributed by a lot of people scattered around the planet, and that along parallel lines of development. To prevent information collapse into the gravity well of unhindered creativity, programmers employ version control systems -- and so do the translators.

Translators have many communication outlets at their disposal. Beyond the circle of one's own language team, translators from other teams and programmers are orbiting close at reach. Find out which issues are best dealt with at which level, for the time spent in constructive discussion to achieve most positive impact.

Automatic assists help translators to speed up the work, avoid common errors, and achieve consistency in style and terminology. They may be provided as standalone tools, or as features of specialized translation tools. These assists include spell checkers, glossaries, translation memories, etc.

Statistics provide overall indicators of the past localization progress, and means to extrapolate for the future. However, as always with statistics, for meaningful conclusions they should be used with care. Read about the sources of statistics, things to count, and effort estimates.

Compared to localizing application interfaces, translating their documentation both throws new elements into the fray, and casts others in a different light. The need to keep the interfaces and documentation in sync, demands another layer of attention. This article covers those peculiarities.

User interfaces have been historically centered and developed around alphabetic writing system, using Latin alphabet, and written from left to right. Drastic changes to any of these assumptions, such as right to left writing or using ideographs instead of alphabet, requires some consideration.

Applications frequently process and display pieces of information which, while universal in concept, are presented differently accros cultures: time and dates, numbers, calendars, and so on. KDE apps gracefully handle such differences, relying on the language/country-based specifications in the KDE core.

Most messages in translation catalogs are ordinary text intended for the user, but some are not. Programmers may use messages which let translators choose behavior for their language, add language-specific data, or state translation credits. Such special entries typically found in KDE catalogs are described here.

Traditional UI translation frameworks are based on English as the pivotal language. This frequently leads to technical problems in target languages, where translators may be forced to choose between bad and worse. To alleviate such issues, KDE provides a way to act on translation at runtime -- the Transcript engine.

While the first thought of localization is that of text translation, text is not the sole resource for localization. Any content presented to the user -- an icon, image, sound -- may require localization in certain cultural contexts. Learn how to localize non-text resources in KDE as the need arises.

Subversion, SVN for short, is the version control system currently used by the KDE project as whole. Same as the code, KDE localization data are stored in the central SVN repository. This article describes the use cases of Subversion for translators, as well as repository organization of localized data.

Pology 是個以 Python 為基礎的架構，用來處理 PO 檔的「field」指令稿的快速且穩固的組合，以在有許多編目檔的版本控制環境內進行操作。然而到目前為止它還是實驗性質，只存在於 KDE 倉儲 (repository) 內，但是已經有一堆可運用的工具。Pology is a Python-based framework for quick and robust assembly of "field" scripts for processing PO files, to operate in a version-controlled environment with numerous catalogs. As of yet it is experimental, living in KDE repository only, but with an array of already applicable tools.

For text resources translated through PO files there are well-established means of tracking changes as the underling code evolves. This is the script to provide a degree of such support for localized non-text resources, when organized as localization bundles.

KDE repository contains many standalone scripts to check and process localized data, of various degrees of specificity -- many even tied to the exact repository organization. Collected here are the descriptions of such scripts which may be generally useful to translators.

This is your first forray into localization and you're looking for the sign saying "Don't Panic", in large friendly letters? Find about the essential prerequisites to start translating early, but productively.

Translators that have surmounted the difficulties and acquired the concepts and tools for the work to become daily routine, may start looking into new directions. How to better coordinate effort, cooperate with other language teams, test the localization quality in live environment, etc.

Each language team in KDE needs one or few persons tasked additionally to their basic work on localization. They take care that the team effort progresses smoothly, and voice their teams in global matters. Language coordinators have write-access to KDE repository, and the responsibility to boot.

While the cooperation can and does take place between translators from different language teams, more focused attention is needed to handle some global issues. To that end, some translators engage in maintenance tasks on wider scale, and one of them is appointed the KDE Localization Coordinator.

Great many languages are already being localized into within KDE project. Sometimes, however, a new language is to be introduced, which requires coordination between its translators and core KDE team. Also, to ship a language as part of official KDE release, some essentials must be satisfied.

Daily in the KDE repository, the lumbering machinery scrutinizes code, updates translations to reflect changes, performs checks, serving the results to translators. Learn to follow its hum, and know where to grease when the gears clog.

Handling two branches for translation, stable and trunk, can be tedious. Porting fixes from one to another branch, making sure team members work on correct branch, etc. Especially so when non-core modules are considered, like extragear. Read about one possibility to curb this overhead.

It is essential for quality that translations are reviewed: for context, terminology, grammar, style, etc. Given text is normally reviewed by persons other than its translator, which prompts the question of how to coordinate and track reviewing. This article presents the ascription system of reviews, building on the summit workflow.